


The Red Of Blood

by TheSistersBread



Series: The Red Witch [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: But not to Wanda, Coming of Age, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Fear, Fix-It of Sorts, Growing Up, Hate, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Or maybe it is, Proceed with caution, Sort Of, Steve Rogers is Not Captain America, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Well he is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 06:08:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30017319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSistersBread/pseuds/TheSistersBread
Summary: A little look into the Scarlet Witch and what could have happened.
Series: The Red Witch [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208168
Kudos: 6





	The Red Of Blood

**Author's Note:**

> This fic does have some heavy topics (but there's nothing graphic) in it so please be warned.

Wanda wasn't meant to be a hero.

Not then, not ever.

She tried.

But she was too weak, too undisciplined and people died!

Wanda was forever going to carry that guilt with her.

But her guilt was nothing in the face of the mourning she had caused.

All those people she had hurt...

And she couldn't hide behind Hydra anymore like the little coward she was.

Wanda was nothing more than an immature teenager who had joined a terrorist organisation of her free will and wanted to hurt other people like she had been hurt.

She knew it.

But Captain America didn't know it.

He smiled at her and she felt like she was forgiven.

Like she was actually worth something.

When had Wanda become so pathetic?

When had she become so weak, so eager to please, to have a spot in any sort of light?

Steve Rogers wasn't the sun but she wanted him to soothe her anyway.

She should have expected it.

It didn't last.

Steve Rogers was a black hole hiding behind a star.

He didn't know it and no one else seemed to see it.

Maybe she was the black hole instead.

She couldn't blame everything on the Captain.

It was all her fault in the end.

She wasn't good enough.

Had never been good enough.

So she let herself fall.

She blasted Vision through all those floors to escape (because she was a danger to him and didn't want to hurt him worse) because she was a selfish little brat.

She wasn't even little anymore.

The Captain wanted to baby her, wanted to patronise her.

Perhaps he didn't realise it.

She was female, young and emotional.

Weak.

He looked after her out of some misplaced sense of duty but he hurt her too.

She stayed silent.

It was her own fault.

Wanda was a full-grown adult now, she couldn't hide away.

But she needed to.

(Because her heart couldn't take it if she hurt someone else. 

Hadn't she been taught better than this?

Hydra would have sent her to the Room if they knew she was behaving like this.

But she wasn't Hydra anymore, was she?

Maybe it was still alive inside her, like a poisonous leech.

She would never be free.)

She needed to hide away because she was a pathetic, whiny coward.

Even now she was moaning.

It dawned to Wanda then that Pietro wouldn't be proud of her.

(But even he wasn't perfect, what right did he have to judge her?

He wasn't a cold-blooded killer.

But he would have beliieved her.

She didn't mean to do it, really she didn't.

But Stark didn't see that.

She hated him all the more for it.

For seeing her as the threat she was.

For reminding her.)

She didn't care what Pietro thought.

He was gone, buried, dead.

There was no instinctive flash of pain at this.

She just felt numb.

Hollow.

Empty.

Wanda was nothing more than a machine, a pawn.

So she obeyed.

She followed Rogers.

He wasn't Captain anymore.

She hadn't like Captain anyway.

(She hated Rogers more.)

She followed, she obeyed.

Because what was she at the end of the day?

An impulsive teenager?

A wronged woman?

A murderer?

They all held a degree of uncertainty to them.

Wanda loved uncertainty for its freedom and hated it for the same reason.

There was one thing she could commit herself to.

She obeyed Rogers.

She was his servant.

He didn't treat her like it.

But he didn't treat her like a person either.

It confused Wanda.

She didn't like being confused when she was trying to focus on one thing.

It reduced efficiency.

There was only one thing Wanda truly wanted.

And she couldn't have it.

Not with people living with her all the time.

Not with all of them.

And she lost herself, slowly.

She became the villainess they all wanted her to be.

Cruel by day, lost at night.

There was hidden mercy in her actions but no one ever saw it.

That was fair, she didn't deserve compassion or sympathy.

No one's.

Not even Roger's.

Not even Stark's.

Not the man she could, would be justified to blame.

Because if she had just listened, maybe it could have gone better.

Maybe not.

She was a terrible excuse of a human being.

The world was only now seeing it.

She was a stupid little girl who had decided she could play grown-up games and suffered for it.

Wanda didn't want to hurt other people, not really.

She wanted to lash out and it not be important because people argued.

But she had gone too far and she knew it.

And now she had dangerous powers.

She couldn't lash out because her magic did not understand restraint.

In a way it was like her, trying but never enough.

Trying wasn't enough.

She knew it.

She had to be better.

She wasn't good enough to be a hero.

Wasn't bad enough to be a villain.

What was she meant to be?

A fallen angel who had succumbed or a devil that had tried to pretend?

Wanda couldn't let herself pretend anymore.

She had to be...

Free/Responsible/Good/Guilty/Doomed.

Was this really all she was meant to be?

A terrorist?

Feared?

Pitied by people who she didn't care about?

She and Pietro had been young when they went with Hydra.

Their only goal had been to hurt Tony Stark back, to show him how it felt.

They hadn't considered the fact that he was a person.

That the world had more colours than Black-and-White.

They had never given him a chance.

He had grown from it.

Wanda hadn't.

She hadn't even tried to move on.

And now most of the world thought she was out to get them.

If she had been one of them, she would have felt the exact same way.

She needed to fix it.

How?

What could she possibly do?

What apology would be great enough?

Wanda could only think of one way.

And so she began her plan.

It started with letters.

They were weak but Wanda had always known how to write best.

She was weak.

They belonged together.

Even if she never found forgiveness, it would be worth it just so they had something real.

Something substantial.

And then before she could lose her nerve she implemented the second stage of her plan.

She was a coward so it wouldn't be anything too overdramatic.

* * *

They found the notes first.

Then the empty bottle by her beside.

Then they saw her, relaxed, her mouth not quite in a smile but almost.

She was still, unnaturally so.

Her hair was splayed out under her.

It was the red of blood.


End file.
